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Josephine County Commissioner Darin Fowler has been a Grants Pass native for nearly all of his life.
Join us as Darin talks about his life and times in Southern Oregon, to leaving his successful electrical business to run for office. As well as current events such as COVID-19 and the importance of getting kids back to school.
Transcription
Brian: Darin Fowler has lived in Josephine county for 47 years. Starting a successful business and raising his family here. For 25 years he has volunteered as a coach, Sunday school teacher and in local government. Darin Fowler, welcome to Grants Pass VIP.
Darin: Good morning. How are you?
Brian: Doing good, doing good. Really appreciate being here, just so the rest of you know, we’re in the end of July of 2020, still dealing with the effects of the COVID crisis.
Besides that, let’s get straight into who you are and what you’re all about. Where would everybody know you from Darin?
Darin: Well, I’ve lived here almost my whole life.
My parents moved here when I was four in 1970. A lot of people I know from school, found my wife at the schools here. And then my kids went to the same schools. I bought the house across the street from the one I grew up in.
My kids ended up with the same school, same teachers. And now my grandson lives six blocks away and he goes to the same school so it’s been really fun.
So you might know me as a soccer coach or a soccer referee, along the way I did a lot of that. Basketball coach for kids.
And then I’ve been electrician for 33 years. So most people would know me from my electrician profession. And I still have that business. I like to put in a few plugs on the weekend.
But then 12 years ago, I started getting involved in local politics.
So some people know me because of that. I was on the city council, right after they recalled five city councilors, you know, around ’08 or ’09, right in there.
My two fellow Commissioners in this county office, were part of this group that got in on that five recalled city councilors, and we got in and I spent 10 years over at the city three as a city councilor, and six and a half as mayor.
Now I have this full time job as Josephine County Commission. Now I’ve met new people that just know me as a county commissioner.
It’s been interesting staying in the same community, find a way to make a living, and then serving my community as a public servant. It’s been really fun.
Brian: So ever since originally moving here, have you lived here the whole time?
Darin: Almost. Yep. After high school here, you kind of get that itch, I wonder what it’s like outside of Grants Pass? And I got to get the heck out of here.
I was fortunate enough to friend was going to San Diego. So I moved in with him in San Diego and learn how to be an electrician down there in San Diego was a pretty fun place to be 18 to 21.
We did have some fun, but when it’s time to have a family and settle into the normal family unit like I did, I found out they were actually paying more for electricians in Grants Pass and they weren’t San Diego, because there’s a very restrictive licensing law in Oregon that California didn’t have.
I came up here and was making good money for a young man. And it’s been a really excellent trade. It’s fun to know something.
Brian: other than the career, what other reasons is there to come to Grants Pass and stay in Grants Pass?
Darin: Well and I always say that if you could find a way to make a living here. Who wouldn’t want to live here?
It’s just beautiful. The weather, it’s the climate. The coast is close. Mountains and rivers are all around you.
If you can find a way to make a living here, you would love to live here and I have enjoyed it because your kids feel safe out in the street in front of your house. There’s the Boys and Girls Club in the basketball and the soccer and baseball and all those sports.
The kids do that very small townie and but I’ve watched this town grow from 12,000 folks back then to the full 36,000 we have now and a lot of people live right outside of Grants Pass and come in to Grants Pass for their livelihood or or just for supplies.
You get to know folks, especially if you stick around that long. So I also taught Sunday school for like 15 years. So I know a lot of people through church as well.
Brian: Oh, good deal. So what led you to becoming an electrician to begin with?
Why did you go into that field?
Darin: I met my wife in between sixth and seventh grade at a Christian school. We met over in the First Baptist Church parking lot right across the street here. And I went out with her then and ninth grade and 11th grade, we ended up getting married when we were 21.
But her father was an electrician and he had these estimating schools. He was teaching injured workers how to do estimating and construction.
He’s like, well what do you plan to do with your life young man?
And I said, I don’t know, they didn’t prepare me for anything at that school over there.
He’s says, I’ll tell you what, I’ll teach you how to be electrician take about a week. I’ll get you a job.
Where do you want to go?
I said, I’m heading to San Diego. He said, oh, I got friends down there, we’ll get you a job.
Took a week and we learned some paper stuff. We learned how to roll up extension cords how to sharpen a drill bit and how to put a plug in a switch in I went down San Diego with his recommendation and got a job and he call every couple of months and say, so when are you going to start courting my daughter again?
Those guys are so cute with that age. So I think he wanted to have me around and then we did get married and lived in this very town. Had most of our holidays at his house, and birthdays and stuff.
So got to know him very well. He’s he taught me how to be an electrician, how to be a father and how to be a grandfather.
Brian: Wow.
That field of work, would you recommend it to others?
Darin: I would, but you kind of got to have a God given talent for a lot of these trades. Because if you don’t like crawling under houses, and wedging yourself in the corner, where the spiders are with a drill in your hand, while you’re dragging a wire with your other hand, might not be the trade for you.
You got to get up on ladders a lot. So if you don’t like that might not be the trade.
But I think it’s all those trades in construction are not only honorable, but there’s a void of talent heading into those fields.
All the wages have gone up, and it is a good way to earn a living. And you don’t have to go to college to do it. You don’t have to go on debt to do it. You could start working tomorrow.
I do encourage people to try it. It’s a good place to spend a month and decide if you like it or not. And you know, I don’t like this. So it’s good to have an internship or something on that and see if you have a talent.
Brian: Running for city council, was that your first political position?
Darin: It was, I had got on a few advisory committees and I was on the urban area Planning Commission at the time. But that was my first step in front of people and asked you to vote for me. I didn’t even get on Student Council in school ever.
But I’ve always been kind of a natural leader in the room. And that comes with pros and cons.
But once I started serving at the City Council over there, I just found that I really enjoyed it.
And our pastor said, if you’ve got a talent, and you love it, that’s one thing. But let’s say it’s guitar, you want to pick up a guitar and start playing and singing in front of people well, you may be having the time your life but if you get up in front of people and they don’t like it. That may not be your gift.
I found that other people enjoyed me being in the room. And that would get to a conclusion, I could help the group get somewhere, let’s make a decision.
I think that’s how I got to be mayor over there as I was good to get in the groove, Okay, remember why we’re here? Let’s get to the end of this one.
And so I really found it was what I thought about most of the time, then, you know, it’s taken over slowly, and you get the bug.
They call it you know, you get the bug of politics or public service.
You either embrace it and try it and I’ve had people yell at me, I’ve had people really mad, I’ve had people really happy. And you just got to have an even keel, and realize tomorrow still comin. Let’s not all die on this hill today. We’ve got stuff to do next week.
So just stay calm and carry on. And so far, it’s worked for me and I think it’s worked for our community as well.
Brian: Why Commissioner, why did you decide to go into that office?
Darin: It was the same feeling I had when we took over that city council that the city didn’t trust their leaders. They want new ones.
If you have good trusted leaders, then you gain and over the next few years, you gained some ground with the voters. And I felt this commissioner’s office had really gained a lot of ground, with my two fellow city councilors coming here first Dan DeYoung and Lily Morgan.
But then there was one office up and Simon Hare was not going to run again. So there was a void.
I looked at the field, and none of them had experience in government and I had 10 years across the parking lot. And I’m all, I don’t want to see the county slip backwards at all, I’m going to go for it.
I remember going home the day I kind of decided that it was a real possibility. And my wife who is the most practical, logical, smartest person I know, I knew she’d say it was a bad idea. And so I was counting on her and I got home and I said, Hey, I think I was supposed to run for county commissioners.
She said, you should.
I’m like, I Oh no! You were supposed to e the one that stopped me.
It is the most interesting job I’ve ever thought of. Even owning my own contracting business for the last 20 years. That’s nothing like this job where you have to flit from meeting to meeting, you have to engage in all those meetings and know the subject. And then you have to do something about it afterwards.
And so there is a lot going on in these offices of lot of stuff happening at once.
I’ll have six or seven meetings today and none of them will be related to each other.
I’ve got to try and process that at the end of the day, which one do I need to move and work and talk about?
And all that time you have to be on like a radio DJ, you know, you can’t just show up and sit in the corner and be quiet. You’re running the meeting or you’re asked to decide something that costs millions of dollars.
You got to be in the room, you got to be on and it can wear you out.
When people told me you got worn out in some office job on again, whatever, you don’t know what constructions like we get sweaty, dirty at the end of the day. But I found that after doing 10 or 12 hours of electrical work, I could still go play soccer or go to a Bible study or something and be energized.
But after six or seven hours of being a commissioner, I’m done.
Brian: Yeah.
Darin: I’m ready to go home. Don’t call me. I want to go in the backyard and watch the pool motor work or something.
Brian: Yeah.
Darin: Just leave me alone. And so now I find Saturdays when I do go put a few plugs in or hang a few lights. It’s like therapy. It’s like, Ah, that feels good.
Brian: Yeah, that’s It’s great.
What are you most excited about that’s going on today?
Darin: I’m excited that our county who is kind of at a cool spot, the housing crisis and the increase in rent and real estate, over the past five years has really priced some of the kids out of the market again, of trying to stay here. That’s concerning.
But you can also stay here because there’s better jobs than there were 20 years ago, and you don’t necessarily have to leave the valley to pursue your dreams, especially in this new virtual world that we’re getting yanked into this year because of the COVID crisis.
Grants Pass and Cave Junction, our whole county has kind of grown to a certain point. But then we’re like, what are we going to be? Are we going to be that tourist town, you know, is it going to be all tourists, all activity, all the time.
Even Cave Junction, they got a bunch of good folks out there that are bringing that town up, bringing the quality of the businesses and the people to a better place, because let’s face it, 30 or 40 years ago, you’d want to drive right through Cave Junction and get to the coast and now you’re tempted to stop you got some cool stuff to do a couple of coffee shops and Taylor’s Sausage where they’re making all kinds of good meats out there.
I like that were at that kind of that college age as a community, and we really get to kind of, okay, now we’re going to settle in, we’re going to be that full tourist and service economy.
While on the side we still got a lot of boutique businesses that are manufacturing things and it’s a neat time to be involved.
I like where our counties at, we used to be a little bit of the talk of the town around the state like, ah, man, they don’t want to pay taxes down there. They want to carry their Bible and their guns and we made it through a real dry spot where the employees went from 400 down to 200 in this building.
We came back out of that with some strong folks and leadership here in the department heads and we made it through that spot.
So now the rest of the states looking as like, hey, how’d you guys do that?
We’re in that kind of crisis.
Now the other counties and they’re like, how did you guys get through it?
We’re respected more around the state. And I’m surprised how out facing this job is how much lobbying you do with Salem, for things that happen to you, unless you’re in the room to talk about it.
I really like where the whole community is headed. And you always see it in the spirit of the people. But now there’s just a more collective, oh yeah, we kind of are somebody now. And I feel like we’re in the, in the steps of Bend, that we could keep moving towards that and be a cool place for everybody to stop and then go home and talk about and go, I went to this really cool place.
They got three mountains around them with bike trails and horse trails. It’s beautiful. We should go.
It’s really fun being involved at this point in time.
Brian: And on the other end of things, you mentioned the COVID crisis and everything that’s going on there. How have the effects of everything that’s been going on this year? How have you seen that in your position in your life?
Darin: Well, first of all, I’m really glad I’m not up for election because it would have been a weird campaigning year. I’m off the presidential cycle as Mayor, I was getting elected the same time as the President’s ballot.
It was always full of candidates and stuff. Now I’m in the off years when our governor gets elected of Oregon two years out.
It’s kind of fun that I get a watch what happens this year, but I thought it was gonna be a tough year because it was an election year.
Who would have thought we’d be talking about shutting down, stay at home, wear a mask. Don’t go into this business only this many people can congregate.
It’s like, whoa, it’s been the weirdest year ever.
And I thought May was the weirdest month in the weirdest year, because we were trying to open and everybody was concerned.
But it turns out COVID is not the boogeyman that’s waiting outside your door. It’s just a normal virus that gets easily transferred from person to person. And so we have to take steps.
I think we’re pretty good at adapting. We can even take a shutdown once.
Even though we may not like it. We all did it.
I never thought there’d come a day where someone told me not to go to church and then I’d actually do it. Not go.
It is very interesting that the government has the ability to tell you what to do for months and so we’ve been robbed of our freedoms and we said it was okay for a while, but now we’re getting towards the edge of our patients.
We’re seeing that it’s not the death at your door that was promised, we only have 166 deaths in Oregon so far accumulated. That is a really low number.
I feel for the families that got affected by it, my brother in law had it and his mom died from it up in Seattle.
And so I have personal connections to it. But you know, stuff happens all the time. When you own a business, the transmission goes out your best employee leaves your heating and air goes out in your building or whatever it is you can overcome a crisis.
Business owners are good at dealing with crisis’s but we can’t be just shut down.
And so I really feel that the tension building for whether we’re going back to school, whether the kids are going to be in classrooms or whether we’re going to shut back down in some form or fashion, or be asked to shut down and have to make some decisions about whether to follow it or not.
It’s still got a lot of year left to get sideways. I’m nervous about that tension.
And I think if if it’s going to be virtual school, let’s put the kids in the classroom and put the teacher at home. A lot easier to get internet for one person than it is for 30 people in the room.
And we could have a volunteer parents for disciplinarian or keep kids on track or, you know, some sort of teacher’s aide or something.
But especially if the teachers vulnerable, whether they have a medical condition or something, let’s go virtual the other way.
We were to pay for the buildings, let’s think this thing through.
So I’m going to be interested because I have a grandson that missed half a kindergarten. or quarter of kindergarten this year and he wants to go to first grade. And he’s learned how to read and all that stuff that comes with it.
I think that tension is really weighing on people right now.
Plus, it’s still an election here.
We got a mayor and five city councilors across the way that are up for election.
We got two of our commissioners that were up for election. Of course on up the the ticket to the President. It’s going to be an interesting year.
I do want to sit around and Thanksgiving, go, okay, is it over?
Brian: Mmmm.
Darin: Are we done with everything?
Can we just enjoy the holidays?
And I don’t think it’s going to whoever wins the presidency, there’s going to be an argument for four years, and it’s going to be passion filled again. And that’s too bad.
We’re never going to get over it. We’re going to keep yelling at each other, keep talking, no matter who gets elected. I have that concern as well.
Brian: Interesting times for sure.
Along that train of thought, if we were to talk again, say a year from now, look back over the past 12 months, what would have had to have happened for you to feel happy about your progress in your life and your position?
Darin: Yep, I would hope that we don’t shut down again.
That’s my main hope, because I know we’ll lose a lot of businesses if we do.
Like I said, they can take one hit with a second hit now. And the kids not being in school.
Even if it’s a hybrid of a few days here and there. The education won’t be as good.
Some of the kids will be able to embrace it, some of them that have decent an internet motivated parents and are self motivated. But that’s not most kids.
And there’s really something about getting up every day and going somewhere where you have to be accountable.
Because that’s what you do the rest of your life with a job. And with your family, whether you’re going to church, or you’re involved in four H or whatever it is, you got to get up, go somewhere, be yourself, be accountable to those folks.
And I think if the kids don’t get in school, every day that we’re going to start seeing the socio problems that come along with that, that we’re going to have different kind of education, which will produce a different kind of American.
It’s not a bad thing for parents to teach, but some of them just don’t have a talent time or inclination for it.
It’s hard to rely on the parents, if they didn’t do before.
I hope it all just settles out and kind of just Ah, even if we have to wear a mask somewhere, or we can’t go see a football game or 60,000 other people. Hopefully there’ll be some more normal days.
Brian: Absolutely.
As a county commissioner, do you think there’s anything that you can do in your position to help overcome any of those obstacles that you just outlined?
Darin: Yes, there is. We have to either endorse or fight the state on any restrictions or asks of them. And so we represent the people in that.
That’s a heavy responsibility.
But we’re Americans first and then we’re Oregonians in my mind.
If we just all get in the room and be reasonable, I think it’ll turn out okay. But if we’re panicking and throwing stuff from the outside in, just trying to keep it in chaos, that’s not the ending we want.
We need to be a good example, we need to wear a mask when we can.
We need to keep on with what the state’s doing, because next spring, there’s a whole biennium decision by the state legislature again about how to spend money and the cap and trade and the diesel bills and Global Warming concerns.
All those things are going to come up in Oregon.
We never had so much money in the last biennium, and they found a way to spend it all and add more taxes.
And that’s what’s hurting them right now is they got out over their skis. And we try and keep them in check and say, let’s be reasonable. Can we do different things in the Willamette area, then make some rings for the minimum wage that you want to do?
Or the cap and trade, or the diesel bills where they want you to get rid of your old diesel’s and they’ll incentivize new ones.
Let’s do that in the metro area first, and then wait five years and then the next ring and do a geographic approach because Oregon certainly is like a lot of other states. We have that population center that can do whatever they want, because they have the control, per capita.
But they don’t live the same lives we do out here and in rural Oregon, and we have a different set of values.
We don’t want to live in 18 story apartments, we want an own little piece of ground with their own little picket fence and it’ll buy a lot more. Whatever it is, you know, it’s just different.
And neither one of them is wrong. Neither one’s Right.
Which is different.
A lot of Americans that live in those cities don’t respect that difference any longer. So we’re going to keep pushing for it.
We might see an exodus out of those cities to these small towns, maybe first by the police, who want to go to a place where people respect them. But then the the regular families that are like, you know, I love it here, but it’s just not safe anymore. So I want a smaller town experience.
I think we’re going to see some migrations from these American cities, and that that could be interesting to watch, because they, especially if they defend the police, the way they’re talking about, what are those cities going to look like in a couple of years?
I like to keep the small town, rural Oregon feel and I think we’ve been able to do that through the Walmart generation in the downtown’s dying around the country.
We made a past those things.
Now we’re ready to put our best foot forward be that tourists service economy, but also be that manufacturing boutique place where you got to place with 10 employees or five employees or 20 that are making something really cool. Maybe a golf club head, or a cup of coffee.
Some of those things can turn into big money.
Brian: Yeah. That’s a great vision for the future of the interesting to see where we’re at in the next year.
Darin: Yeah, we’ll have to have that conversation in the year, you were talking about.
Brian: Absolutely.
How would a listener if they want to find out like, say more about your Electrician Business? What would you recommend they do?
Darin: Well, mine’s called the Power Company.
So I get a lot of calls for Pacific Power when the power goes out.
Because people think, Oh, I got a local guy, I’ll call him.
You could go online. Other people talk about us, but we’re kind of a private company that only works for other contractors that are building stuff.
We don’t really do a lot of service work. And so they everybody needs an electrician and seems nowadays and we don’t have enough and so we’re turning away calls every day because that price cut usually goes up.
But my old friends I still go to their house on a Saturday and will put some plugs in form for their hot tub or whatever. I still do that for people I know.
I like to see the new companies that are coming up, like I’ll see an electrician name that I never saw before.
I’m like, well, who are you?
Because there has to be a changing of the guard eventually. And we have a good culture of electricians.
We all talk to each other here. There’s some that know a lot. And I have to go to them to get my answers.
Because I only know a medium amount. It’s such a big world. My company’s one that I don’t promote very often.
Brian: Yeah, no, that’s good.
How about the the County Board of Commissioners?
If someone wanted to find out more about what it is that you guys do on a regular basis or wanting to get involved, what do you recommend they do?
Darin: Well, I’d certainly invite you to come in and shadow for a few hours one day and see what we do.
But realize that in Oregon, once you’ve seen one county government, you’ve seen one county government. there’s 36 counties, the one in Jackson County is different than the one in Curry county, than the one in Josephine County. We’re all just a little bit different.
But it’s also the weirdest three headed animals because there’s three commissioners, and you’re the manager of the county and the representatives for your county.
But you can’t talk in the hallway, two of us can’t walk out the door and talk.
Because that’s a meeting.
That’s a quorum.
And so everything we talked about is in front of a microphone and in front of the newspaper. And unfortunately, newspapers decided to try and sensationalize local news to keep themselves relevant.
Used to be you catch the truth in the newspaper now you catch a little shade off of the truth.
It’s been difficult to discuss things that are half baked, do you want to hey, you guys want to talk about a lodging tax?
Like it’s in the newspaper tomorrow. We didn’t really finish the conversation.
We don’t have any idea what we might do.
But you’ve already made a decision for the community in the newspaper.
And it’s unfortunate that that three headed leadership model is difficult because then we’ve got 15 department heads throughout the county, and I’m liaison to my chair and the other commissioners are but we don’t cross talk as much.
If one department head like Larry Graves, our airport director needs a $3 million grant for the runway rehab out in Illinois Valley. He has to go to each Commissioner individually and talk to him first without crossing the streams.
You can’t tell what the other commissioners thought. Otherwise it gets in the newspaper too fast.
So he has to carefully approach each Commissioner takes three times as long. And then we go to a public meeting, knowing our pre-information. So we’re not blindsided by something.
Larry’s got an interesting job trying to deal with three bosses.
But we have some great department heads there. Like I said, they’re rock stars.
They made it through the desert and now they’re in the valley where things aren’t great, but the good.
But those that wanted to live here and stayed here through the hard times, are just total rockstars.
They found ways to survive with less money and how to get things done outside of the normal government style. Which I think Josephine county is kind of out of the regular style.
We got our own kind of breed here of entrepreneur. I’m not afraid to tell you what I’m thinking type of folks.
And their get up and get it donors to you know, a lot of them love pickups, love shovels. People just like to work and get stuff done around here.
I think that’s what makes this job so interesting is three positions. But that makes it fun to it’s different. And most of the Commission’s around the state are three like this.
So they’re all set up that weird, funky way. And I think when people heard I was the mayor, like, Oh, hey, that’s pretty cool. And they hear your commission like, Well, what does the commissioner do?
Like, well, it’s a long story, how much time do you have?
Brian: Yeah.
Darin: But it’s a three bosses managing the county and then three representing you up to the rest of the state. It’s very interesting.
And I see why people don’t stay in it very long. It’s draining. And it might be easier, just go make money as an electrician. Then to go through days that are are tough like these, but I’m having fun. It’s my turn. So I’ll take my turn.
Brian: Oh, good. That’s great.
Is there any question I didn’t ask that you’d like to answer?
Darin: I know we are kind of……one of my observations is we’re kind of a baby bible belt here in Josephine County, we got a lot of churches.
We have a few big churches as well, including one out navigate that was up to about 7,000 a few years back, and so we have a little bit of that original nuclear family. You know, I had one son, one daughter, one wife. And it was very cute.
You know, we could all get in the car. If there was an emergency, we could each grab a kid. We had a boy and a girl.
So we got to do the things that girls like to do things that boys like to do.
My kids, when they left here at age 18 or 19, to go see what the world was like. They came back a couple years later and said, you know, Hey, thanks for my milk toast upbringing.
I’m all, what do you mean?
They’d say like I heard stories.
My was my son was in the Marines and he said, I heard stories of the way people were brought up, and what they had to go through and where they had to move and what happened to their family.
And you guys just, we bought a house, we stayed in it, you stayed together. We had fun.
We always had milk in the fridge or whatever your phrase is. And I want to thank you for that.
And that was kind of cool to hear that from both of my kids separately.
Hey, thanks for that traditional American upbringing that wasn’t all rocky and thorny.
I think people like that about this town that you could raise a family your style, find the kind of house in place you want to live. And the kids that grow up here, they turn out pretty darn good.
They’re pretty self reliant, great folks to have in your community.
And what really made me sad in the past is when great kids would leave and go to college and shine and end up with a job somewhere else. they’d start a family somewhere else.
My neighbor has three great kids living up in Portland that are in smaller cities and working for municipalities in a hospital. But he’s got eight grandkids in Portland. So now he’s retired. He’s thinking, hmm, I might have to move to Portland because that’s where my family’s out.
And so we get the brain drain the first time of the good kids that leave and then we get the parents that follow. My dentist was one, Greg Bigelow went to Texas to be with his kids, and grandkids. We lost a really good guy in that dentist.
And so that double brain drain doesn’t have to happen anymore.
Because you can go out and spend a few years and but then you can come back and you could use whatever you’ve learned and find a way to make that living here, and then raise your family here in a nice safe spot.
So that’s one of the things I really like about this community.
Brian: That’s a great perspective and a great thing for us to close on. Really appreciate the time you spent.
Darin Fowler, thanks so much for being on Grants Pass VIP.
Darin: Thank you and best of luck on your next broadcast.
Brian’s Closing Thoughts: It was really good sitting down and talking with Darin Fowler.
He’s one of these people that you see around town everywhere. He always in the newspaper, he was the Mayor. He was a City Council person. Now he’s a Commissioner. So he’s always out there.
Being able to sit down with him and actually talk about some of his life stories like the story of him becoming an electrician and how his father in law took him aside, that was really an inspiring story, really neat.
I like to think that things like that are still possible that there are still people that are willing to give a hand up to somebody and give them a chance at really an amazing different life.
Another thing about Darin that’s just automatic when you’re around him is he’s very high energy and very friendly, very positive. And you can see why he’s been popular in the things that he’s ran for, and then able to have a lot of friends in town because he is just got that positive energy around them all the time.
Even with that, he’s still gone through the process of being completely drained, physically and mentally and everything. By the time he gets home at night, he talked about that. That’s really interesting.
I think it’s one of those things that if you’re ever looking to run for public office, talk to the people who have served in that position before, because all positions are a little different.
Especially people that have ran for Commissioner that I’ve met, I think a lot of them don’t fully realize all the ins and outs of it. Because it’s so much more than a typical position. And it does so many different things.
We just handle it so differently here in Josephine County.
It’s worth talking to them even if you’re not running. It’s worth taking any of them aside and asking them what they think about the lifestyle and all the different hats they have to wear as a Josephine County Commissioner.
Final thing I want to point out along with that positivity that Darin has, he’s always future casting, putting out an idea idea of the future a positive idea. He’s putting it out there for everybody.
Everybody he talks to he’s talking about the next big thing coming, and whether you agree with them or disagree with him. You can’t help but have a smile on your face when you’re listening to him.
Because he’s so positive and it sounds like a great deal. It really does. He’s one of those people.
You just get the feeling that nothing’s ever going to stop Darin Fowler. He’s just going to keep going like the energizer bunny.
So I really appreciate the time he spent with me and I can’t wait to be able to talk with him in the future and find out what’s next for Darin.